


Hopeless Wanderer

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Crossdressing, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Abuse, F/M, I don't know tag to come later I suppose, Nori has issues, always a girl Nori, being a parent is hard, big time, but she tries, genderbent, mentions of violence in chapter 8
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nori knew from the start she should never had seduced that charming young cook.<br/>Doing things she wasn't supposed to do was what she lived for.<br/>Falling in love hadn't been part of the plan.<br/>Getting pregnant, even less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The blame for this lays on Alckalin who wanted a fluffy AU. My answer was "hey, was if Bombur and Nori had been married all along, like, a secret wedding and stuff?"  
> Yet this is NOT a fluffy fic  
> I am terrible at coming up with fluffy ideas.  
> And I'm not even sorry.

It had been love at first sight for Nori. She had seen that shy, short, ginger dwarf, and she had known he would be _hers_. She didn't believe in stories that said some dwarves had a One. But she still knew that this dwarfs was hers and hers alone.

If she had been a serious girl, she'd have left him in peace. He looked like an honest lad, and she was... well, she was barely seventy, but she was already anything _but_ honourable. Which was why she had gone so far up North in the first place. She'd run into a bit of trouble back home, and had to keep a low profile for a while. Dori had asked her to. And if it had just been him, Nori would have stayed, just to annoyed him, but there was their mother to protect. Apparently, Nori could only help people she loved by staying away from them.

Which was why she should never have approached the ginger dwarf. She could't drag yet another person into the mess that was her life.

It was a terrible idea.

Nori _lived_ for terrible ideas.

 

Her ginger dwarf worked in an inn, where he was in training as a cook. She managed to have the waitress fired and to take her place. A little money never hurt after all, and a job like that one was a skill she could always use again later.

But as he turned out, talking to her dwarf was more difficult than she had imagined. _Shy_ didn't even begin to cover it, and he was of the type that would jump off a cliff rather than talk to a girl. Nori had met others like that in the past. She had always found them boring and a little irritating, but on him, it was... strangely endearing. So she did her best to joke with him (always _with_ him, never _at_ him) and to compliment his cooking. It was the one thing he managed to be proud of, her dwarf. As if he didn't have a lovely smile and thick, long hair in through which she dreamed of letting her fingers runs.

It took her weeks, but slowly, step by step, she managed to have him open up a little. He wasn't called “cook” or “hey you”, as she might have thought at first, but Bombur. A nice name, she decided. A little unusual, but it suited him. _Her_ name was boring. Every dwarf and their neighbour used Nori as an outside name, and the fact it could be used regardless of gender didn't help. She often tried to tell herself that having a very common name helped when you were in a job were discretion was the key, but she still didn't like it.

“I find it rather pretty,” Bombur mumbled shyly when she shared her distaste with him. “On you, it's pretty. And rare isn't... always good. I've got a cousin, he's called Bifur.”

“Oh, that _is_ unfortunate. But I know worse. I've got this... sort of almost vaguely cousin. And his name. Wait for it. His name is _Dwalin_.”

Bombur sniggered, and Nori grinned, feeling encouraged.

“That's not even the worse of it. He's got this brother, see. And. He's called. _Balin_.”

Her ginger dwarf put a hand against his mouth to hide his laughter.

“Worse than Bifur,” he admitted with a small smile. “See, Nori really _is_ a nice name.”

 

Things improved a lot between them after that. Bombur was still as shy, but he started reacting better to her jokes, and even dared a few of his own now and then.

He still blushed terribly the first time she kissed him.

“W-why did did did you d-do that?” he stuttered afterwards.

“Because I wanted to. I like you. Do you like me?”

“Y-yes, b-but it's not...”

“Tell me it's not proper, and I _swear_ I'll punch you in the face. And that'd be a shame, because I'd rather kiss you again, honestly.”

“Oh. Well. F-fine, I suppose?”

She smirked, and kissed him again. He didn't protest.

 

When she left after a few months, they had never done a lot more than kissing. Bombur was a charmingly honest boy, the sort who had been told that good dwarves didn't mess around before _marriage_ , and who actually believed it. Nori found it very touching.

She promised herself she'd convince him of how _silly_ that notion was, at her next visit.

 

When she came back two years later, it took her no more than three days to convince Bombur that messing around was a very, very good idea.

He seemed to agree.

When she left again, Bombur looked entirely heartbroken. She promised to come back as soon as she could, and for what might have been the first time in her life, she intended to keep that promise.

He didn't seem convinced. She couldn't blame him for it.

 

Nori had gone on a new job after that. Something easy, a small scam, that was supposed to take her only a few weeks and get her enough money to make sure her mother and brother would have an easy life for a few months.

She didn't worry too much the first time she was sick in the morning. She'd drunk more beer than she should have the night before. When it happened again the following days, she thought she'd eaten something that hadn't been as fresh as it ought to have been. By the end of the second week, she knew it could only mean one thing. She quickly wrapped the job, making more money than she had expected, and left the human town in which she'd been working.

She didn't know what to do. It was not something she was used to.

But she was pregnant, and unmarried, and that was _bad_. Dori would kill her. In his twisted little mind, being a single mother was worse than thieving or killing, and fatherless children were lower than dirt. Nori knew that very well. _She_ didn't have a father.

But her child did.

It had to be Bombur's. She hadn't been with anyone else in a long while before him, and no one at all after him. The child was his, she knew it. She wasn't sure he'd be easily convinced. But if he did believe her... She's never be a good mother, she was sure of it. Her mother wasn't very good at the job, and Nori knew she'd never be half as maternal as that. But Bombur would probably be a wonderful father. And she had to try, anyway. She had to try everything before she left her future child with Dori and their mother.

She couldn't let them turn another kid into _her_.

 

Bombur was _ecstatic_ to see her back, and so soon too.

Nori had gone straight to the inn when she'd arrived in town, and she had found him in the kitchen, as usual. Someone might have tried to stop her from going in, but she hadn't listened. She had to find Bombur. So she found him. And kissed him. Hard.

Only a few weeks, and she had missed him, more than she'd had imagined.

“Thought you had a job?” he mumbled afterwards, a little breathless.

“Taken care of. I need to talk to you.”

“I've still got some work, and...”

“Make someone else to it, Bom. We have to talk. Now. It's important.”

Bombur had frowned then, clearly worried, but he had nodded and asked his help to watch over the stew for him (he'd gone from 'in training' to 'head of the kitchen' since she'd first met him). Nori had quickly dragged him outside, a little way away from the inn, in a small alley where she knew they'd have less chances to be disturbed. She had to do it fast, she knew. Like getting a knife out of a wound. Fast and clean, to be done with it and get on with her life once he'd have sent her away. Because he would sent her away. He knew what sort of girl she was. She had shown him what sort of girl she was. He could never want her, nor her child.

“What's the matter then?” Bombur asked patiently after a long moment of silence. “You said it was important?”

“I'm with child,” Nori answered, too quickly.

She winced. That was not what she had rehearsed. She had been supposed to try to see if he had ever thought about having children, and if he'd ever thought about them going serious, if he'd ever considered mixing both ideas at any point during the coming year. She'd had a plan. And she'd just messed it up.

He stared at her for a while, looking in shock, and Nori closed her eyes. It was coming. Any moment now, he'd reject her, call her a whore, ask what proof she had the child was his, and she had none, so he'd reject her, and her child would be raised by her mother and Dori and her, and it would turn just as bad as Nori herself, if not worse.

She opened her eyes when she felt warm hands on her cheeks, and Bombur's lips on hers, kissing her softly. Lovingly. When he pulled back, he was looking at her as if she were made of mithril and and diamonds.

“I'm going to be a dad?”

Nori nodded silently. She didn't know what to say. It was not part of the plan. The plan had been to tell him, be rejected, go home to Dori, abandon the child with her brother, go away in the South, steal a lot of gold, send it home for the child, be murdered in an alley like the dirty thief she was, never come home again. _That_ was the plan. Bombur smiling and being happy and trusting her was _not_ part of the plan.

It had been a bad plan anyway.

“You're not... angry, then?” she still asked, just in case.

“Angry? Why would I be angry? I... I _love_ you, and we're going to have a baby, and...”

He stopped, paling.

“We... we're going to have it, right? You... I know you've got a mother and brother and... and I'm just a cook and I don't earn much, but I'm sure we can find a way, and my family will help, and I... I really want to have that baby with you!”

Bombur looked so terrified at the idea she might leave that Nori couldn't resist. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him again, desperately.

“' _Course_ we're going to have it. Like I'd go to my idiot brother when I can have _you_.”

They cried and laughed, laughed and cried. At some point, Bombur asked her to marry him. She agreed.

How could she not have agreed?

 

A week later, Nori regretted agreeing to getting married to Bombur.

Not because of Bombur himself (Oh, she had been a lucky girl the day she'd first laid her eyes on him, she really had) but because of his family.

His parents had not been impressed at all by her. She couldn't blame them. She was pregnant after all. That was never a good start with future in-laws. And she wasn't properly trained in any trade. She'd spent some time learning to sew and embroider with a proper master, a few years earlier, but she had given up on that as soon as she'd realized that a good scam left her hands in a better state, was a lot more fun, and brought more money home. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She _still_ thought it had been a quite idea. But she couldn't really tell them that, so she'd invented a story about not being able to finish her apprenticeship because she couldn't afford it, and how she was now travelling and taking odd jobs to be able to send money home. Bombur's parents seemed to buy it. Or they were very good actors. They didn't like her, but they at least seemed to pity her, which she decided was better than nothing.

His brother, on the other hand, hated her, thought the child wasn't Bombur's, and when they were alone together, he called her a lying, thieving whore. Well. At least, he had some observation skills, if he had seen through the charming act she'd put on. Bofur rather reminded her of Dori, to be honest. A less polite version of Dori, and with a sense of humour. She could have _almost_ liked him, in different circumstances.

In the end, the only member of Bombur family to welcome her entirely had been Bifur, his cousin. He had glanced her over before nodding and declaring that she'd do. According to Bombur, coming from him that was a great compliment.

The question of her family was a more delicate one. She had told Bombur that her relatives wouldn't come, and Bombur in turn had told his parents, who of course had asked why. Nori had hesitated. It would have been easy to lie, to invent a story, but it could mean problems later on. Honest and direct, then.

“They wouldn't approve of the match in a thousand years, so I'd rather not invite them, if you don't mind.”

“Why wouldn't they approve?” Bombur's mother asked coldly. “Is there a problem with my son? Is he not _good_ enough for you, maybe?”

“Fron, if anyone isn't good enough here it's me,” Nori assured her. “But my mother and brother are idiots who think that old blood from Erebor still has value here, that it makes them better than the common dwarf, if you catch my meaning.”

They all looked at her with wide eyes.

“Are you saying you're noble?” Bombur asked, almost reverently, and that had Nori rolling her eyes.

“My mother and brother are. I'm not. My mother's mother was... a _personal friend_ of king Thror, apparently, and he made sure my mother married some small noble. Her husband was my brother's father, but he never was mine. My mom and brother still think I should marry someone who's got a genealogy longer than their beard, though. I... disagree.”

She disagreed so much she had ran away at fifty when they had started trying to push her into the arms of a distant cousin named Gloin, then of her other cousin Dwalin, and once her mother had _literally_ pushed her against prince Thorin.

“Does it make you Thror's granddaughter then?” Fron had asked.

“No. I'm not the mad king's _anything_. I am Nori, and I am Bombur's intended, and soon I'll be his wife, and that's all I want to be.”

They seemed surprised by how much conviction she put into saying that. To be frank, she was just as surprised to realize she meant it. The idea of being tied to someone had never quite pleased, but if it was with Bombur, she didn't mind as much. She might even end up enjoying having a stable life, after some time.

It was worth a try, anyway. _Bombur_ was worth a try.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori's mother makes an appearance or two, and makes a big sister out of Nori.

The wedding was kept very simple. Bombur's relative were simple people, anyway, and Nori liked it better that way.

It was strange, the way her hand shook when she tied a braid in Bombur's red, coarse hair. She had the surest of hands when she had to open a lock of pick a pocket, but this was making her nervous.

Then again, this time she was risking a lot more than a trip in prison.

 

They lived with Bombur's family, and Nori took any odd job she could find. _Honest_ odd jobs. As she would do for the rest of her life.

Some days, she wondered if it wasn't too late to run away. She could still go home to Dori, have the baby there and then leave, never see any of them again. She could still be free. It wasn't too late yet. She could regain control of her life.

Then Bombur would come home, and she'd forget everything about going away.

Until the next morning.

 

Loni was born a cold spring morning, and she was the ugliest baby Nori had ever seen.

It was love at first sight.

Nori had always been sure that she'd be a terrible mother, like her own had been (never unkind, never violent, but never really _caring_ either), but she loved Loni as she had never loved anyone in her life. She joked once that Bombur ought to be jealous, because he now had the second place in her heart.

He had just laughed and kissed her.

Everything was perfect.

 

But that perfection didn't last.

Nori loved her daughter, and she loved her husband, but the desire to run away, which had disappeared after the birth, slowly crept back over the following months. It started with little things, with her staring out of the window while she was sewing, or picking the family's pocket, to be sure she wasn't losing her skills. Then she lost her appetite, and her sleep became uneasy. She would get up in the middle of the night and look outside, wondering what sort of idiots were out there, waiting for someone clever to rid them of the wealth they probably did not deserve.

She tried to hide it.

If she didn't sleep well, it was because there was a six months old baby to take care of. She didn't eat much at meals because she'd had too many cakes earlier. She looked outside because she worried about the laundry that would never dry in that weather.

She was good at lying, and she was good at hiding. It was her _job_. Had been her job.

And yet one evening, as they lay in bed, Bombur announced he was going to buy a goat.

“What are we going to do with a _goat_ , Bom?” Nori laughed. They had just made love, she was in a delightful mood, and she was ready to find anything nice and funny.

“It'd be for Loni.”

“She's a bit young to have a pet. And I think a cat or a dog is more traditional, really.”

“I meant it's for the _milk_ for Loni,” Bombur explained patiently.

Nori tensed, all her good humour gone, and she sat up.

“ _What about the milk_?”

Bombur sat too, looking worried, and he tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away.

“Why are you going to need milk for our daughter? Are you trying to tell me something?”

“I'm telling you that you don't have to worry if you want to _leave_ ,” he mumbled sadly. “I can get a goat, and Loni will be fed. I'll take good care of it, and so will my mother.”

“Are you trying to send me away?” Nori almost yelled, feeling sick and furious all at once.

“No! But you... Nori, you've been miserable for, for _months_!” Bombur replied, looking heartbroken. “And I love you, and I want you to stay with me, but you... you're not the staying type, and I knew it from the start, and I had accepted it before Loni, and I'm still accepting it now. You can leave, I... I understand. You're like Bifur, you're not the staying type. That happens.”

After the first moment of shock, Nori threw herself at his neck and kissed him like a drowning dwarf might gasp for air, desperate and crying.

“I'll come back,” she promised, showering his face with small kisses. “I might not be the staying type, but for you I'll definitively be the coming back type, I swear.”

“I'll wait for you, then. We both will, Loni and me.”

She kissed him again.

Oh, Mahal had to _love_ her to have given her such a perfect dwarf _just for her_.

 

She left as soon as the goat had been purchased. Family business, she explained. Couldn't take Loni on a trip South of the mountains, she was too young. She told them she'd be back within a few weeks (no more than a year, actually, she had promised Bombur, and that was a promise she intended to keep for once).

Her first step outside of the small town made her shiver.

She was free again.

As soon as she was out of view, she started running like a little dwarfling on their first trip outside.

She was _free_.

 

She did travel south, in the end, but not after earning some money on the way. Knowing Dori and their mother, a few extra coins wouldn't hurt them. And all the time she rode there (she'd earned a very good pony in an almost fair game of dice) she wondered if she should tell them about Bombur, about their child.

When her mother opened the door, heavily pregnant, Nori decided they didn't need to know she had a family of her own.

“Did you marry the father, or are you inflicting another bastard to this world?” was her first question. She immediately winced. She sounded like Dori. Wonderful.

“He's gone home to tell his family,” her mother answered, looking delighted at the idea. “As soon as he comes back, I'm marrying him. Oh, it's so nice to have you back! You”ll stay for the wedding and the birth, won't you? You're going to be a big sister! You'll help me take care of the baby, it will be great training for when you have some of your own. And you know, your cousin Dwalin is _still_ single.”

Nori sighed, and rolled her eyes. She was suddenly reminded of why she had left.

It got worse when Dori saw her. He just had to look at her, and she felt like she was thirty again, coming home with her brand new dress dirty and torn. Any minute now, and he'd tell her that she had to go to her room without dinner.

Instead, he hugged her. Tight.

“Four years, Nori! Four! We've been dead worried!”

“I was... busy? And you made it quite clear you'd rather not have me home, anyway.”

Dori gave her a light slap on the shoulder. “That doesn't mean you can't write, you know. Oh, well. You've put on some weight, haven't you? About time! Just let me feed you a few decent meals, and you might even look like a girl some day.”

“See, that's why I've been gone so long. It's because you say things like that.”

“Well, I can't help the fact you are too skinny, Nori. Who will ever want to marry you, looking like _boy_?”

“I'm sure I'll find _someone_ ,” Nori replied with a cold smile. “That is, if I want to. Marriage. Not really my thing, you know.”

Dori opened his mouth, but their mother quickly came between them, a forced smile on her lips.

“Now, children, let's not argue! It's bad for the baby! Come, Dori, why don't you make us some tea, hm? And you, Nori, go change into something clean! Look at the dust on that tunic, you look like a beggar!”

“Yes, mother,” Dori grumbled.

“Yes, mother,” Nori sighed.

 

“How is the father?” Nori asked her brother that night, after their mother had gone to bed.

“Noble.”

“Not what I meant. She said he was going to marry her...?”

“I'm fairly sure he's already married,” Dori said. “I tried to tell her. She said I didn't have to be jealous, that he wouldn't replace dad, that it was a different sort of love.”

Nori sighed. “Some days, I'm really glad we don't have her brain.”

“Oh, you don't have _anything_ from her,” Dori assured her. “You are all your father's. You look like him, think like him, and you're about as trustworthy.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn't. Where have you _been_ , Nori? And don't tell me you were on a job, you're not the sort to stay away for four years on a job that pays that little. I know you, and I know you're hiding something.”

She hesitated. She didn't want to tell Dori about Bombur. Not with the way their mother and him had spent the entire afternoon telling her about Dwalin, and how he was head of the guards, and still so close to prince Thorin, and what _wonderful_ tattoos he had.

Dori was a good dwarf, but she didn't want him to ever get anywhere near her husband and her child.

“I'm working on something new,” she said, and it wasn't quite a lie. “I think it's working pretty well so far, but I'm not sure yet how it will turn out. But it... it's something good. And I really wand it to work. That's why I won't stay long. I'll leave soon after the baby is born. I can't stay away from that... thing too long.”

“Another of your schemes, then. And I suppose you're very proud of yourself, too.”

“You know, I think I've never prouder of myself,” Nori admitted, thinking of Loni's wide smile that was exactly like Bombur's. “I'm pretty sure it's my masterpiece.”

 

Ori was born a couple months later, and Nori had to admit that he was a lot prettier than Loni had been, though her little girl had much nicer eyes. But he was still the cutest little brother she had ever had, and she decided to put some money to the side for him, like she had started doing for Loni. One day, that little dwarfling would be grown up, and if they counted on their mother, he would never be able to afford an apprenticeship anywhere.

Nori had almost laughed out loud when she'd first thought of that.

She really _was_ turning into Dori.

 

She left soon after, leaving most of the money she'd earned to Dori. He had tried to refuse, because it wasn't honest money, but she had pointed out that he had a baby on his arms and a mother who still believed her lover would marry her. He couldn't afford to be picky.

He had taken the money, cursing her as he did so.

 

Nori had been gone for exactly eleven months when she set foot again in the inn where Bombur worked. She went straight to the kitchen as she had so long ago, spotted him easily (a little larger than when she'd left, and his hair longer. _Good_. More of him to love), grabbed him by the neck and before he could react, she kissed him fiercely. It too him a few seconds to realize what was going on, but once he did catch up, he kissed her back and oh, wasn't that perfect. She had missed him.

“I came back,” she said proudly afterwards.

“So you did,” he replied, smiling widely. “I knew you would. Do you want to go see Loni now, or can you wait until I'm done here?”

“Does she remember me?”

“A little. I tell her about you everyday. She can't wait to see you again.”

“I'll wait until you're done,” Nori decided. “I'll go get a beer and wait for you inside, come and get me when you can?”

Bombur nodded, and kissed her again.

Nori smiled.

She was home.

 

Loni was just starting to walk properly, and she was struggling with her first words both in Khuzdul and in Iglishmek. She was even lovelier than when Nori had left, and after a few moments of wariness towards her long gone mother, the small dwarfling started a campaign of seduction against her, smiling and laughing every few seconds, refusing to leave her arms. Not that Nori woul have let go of her anyway.

“She's starting to look like you, Bom. Oh, she'll break hearts that one.”

“That's for sure. And she's got your smarts too. The neighbours'd better hide their kids, she'll have them all wrapped around her little finger. Won't you, my darling? Oh yes, you'll get in all sorts of trouble, but no one will mind, not with a smile like that.”

Nori sniggered, thinking of the tricks she would teach Loni in a few years. That would be fun.

 

But while the reunion with her husband and daughter had been easy enough, her in-laws were a good deal less welcoming. She had said a few weeks. They didn't seem in a state of mind to admit that 'a few' was a very vague notion. So Nori decided to do the only thing that seemed to work with them, and to tell the truth. Not all of it, of course, but she did explain that she had found her mother pregnant again, and her brother struggling to feed them both, so she had taken a job or two to help.

“I don't like them much, but they're still family, you know? And the baby has done me no wrong.”

 _Yet_ , she added mentally. It would come. He was family. Sooner or later, he too would hurt her.

“Sounds like your mother's an idiot and a whore,” Bofur commented. “What sort of person gets two kids out of wedlock?”

Nori glared at him. She entirely agreed of course, but _he_ still wasn't allowed to say things like that about her mother.

“She was raised to be the mithril wife of an important dwarf who only asked her to be pretty and quiet,” Nori growled. “She wasn't made for the life she's had since the Worm. She still thinks if someone promises to marry her, they _mean_ it. She doesn't know how the real world works.”

Some days, Nori almost pitied their mother. Until she remembered many other noble dwarves had fled Erebor that day, and most of them had moved on, including Dori. Smaug had made him an orphan at twenty, their mother had made him a brother at twenty three, and he'd started working that same year.

Their mother was an innocent, Dori would say.

Innocence didn't excuse everything, Nori always replied.

“If the situation is that bad,” Fron started, “maybe they could...”

“They'd never come here,” Nori harshly cut her. “They live near what's left of the old court, and they'll never leave that, not even to save their lives.”

Or maybe they would. Nori didn't want to risk it, though. She didn't want them to intrude on her fragile happiness with Bombur and Loni, didn't want them to ruin this like they always ruined everything.

And it was such a good excuse to leave regularly.

Fron frowned, but didn't insist, and she never talked again about taking in Dori and Dev.

 

The next six months were heaven. Nori went back to sewing and helping in the house, playing with Loni during every moment of free time she had.

Bombur had told the truth: Loni was a smart little lass who could sign very well for her age. Khuzdul was more of a problem, and she hadn't started learning Westron yet, so she often kept silent and talked only with her hands. Unless she got angry.

Then she would yell and scream, leaving Nori helpless and panicked. _How_ did you calm a baby of that age? Thank Mahal, Fron quickly taught her the trick of checking if the little one was hurt and, if not, to just not pay her any attention. Much to Nori's surprise, it usually worked, though she did not always have the strength to ignore Loni's cries.

“You're spoiling her!” Fron once scolded her gently. “She'll end up thinking she's some sort of princess.”

“She is to me.”

Better to have a spoiled dwarfling than a second herself, Nori had decided long ago. She'd never be a _good_ mother, that much she knew, but she would still be a _better_ one than her own.

 

Nori didn't stay long.

As much as she loved her family, she knew they didn't need her. Dori and poor little Ori, on the other hand, probably did not eat enough, and it wouldn't be a surprise if their mother had already found herself another _fiancé_.

She had.

And he was just as bad as the previous two, if Dori was to be trusted. On things like that, he was.

“I have to hide the money,” he complained the first time they were left alone with the baby. “And even like that, mother makes me buy things for him, or she gets him presents when I ask her to go to the market. We starve for days, but all is well because _he_ has shiny new buttons to his tunic.”

“I can help with the money, don't worry. And I... can help with him too. I know... certain people.”

“No! He's not worth the risk! But maybe, if you could just stay... Oh, don't look at me like that, I still hate you. But he's afraid of you. I don't think he'll stay for long if you're here. Please, Nori, I... he's done nothing _yet_ , but he doesn't like Ori, and I'm scared. Stay, _please_.”

It was ridiculous. It was so stupid that Nori almost ran away just then. Dori didn't need her to protect the baby. He was stronger than that dwarf, stronger than any warrior in Ered Luin probably, but he was too much of a coward to use that strength, and she told him.

“I broke your arm, once,” he reminded her sternly. “I'm never doing that again to anyone.”

“You shouldn't make promises like that, brother. Do you think Elgr will stop at breaking Ori's arm? Because you know, I'm starting to think, maybe _he_ will marry mother, I can just picture him as the sort who'd want to breed, and if Ori is in his way, then...”

“You are horrible!” Dori spat at her. “How can you even _think_ of things like that?”

She could because she had seen it often enough. There were many dwarves in her trade that had remarried mothers, and they considered themselves lucky. Sometimes, second husbands were not content with just driving away their predecessor's children. Dwarflings were less fragile than the children of men, but mountains were dangerous places, accidents happened. She thought of Ori, sweet little Ori, crushed by a rock...

And she couldn't count on Dori, not for this. He knew nothing of life, just like their mother.

“Three months,” she said. “Just three and I'm gone again, because I have better things to do with my life than to clean up Ma's mess. But I swear Elgr will have left before me, and he'll never come back.”

“You're not going to...”

“He'll still be alive, I swear.”

There were so many things she could do to him without killing him.

Then for a short moment, Nori wondered if it wouldn't be easier to just get rid of their mother, the source of all their problems. She knew Dori would make a great parent for Ori. She also knew he'd never forgive her if she did that. And the killing of a noble dame, fallen and disgraced as she was, would attract too much attention from the idiots who still called themselves the king's court.

A better idea would have been to take Ori away and have him raised with Loni. But that would mean breaking Dori's heart or taking him too, and she wanted neither.

“Sometimes, I understand why you keep leaving,” her brother said.

“Really? Because I don't know why I always come back,” she answered.

 

All it took to get rid of Elgr was a knife in the dark, and a few whispered threats about certain parts of him.

Dev was in tears when he left, and accused Nori of having driven him away, with her terrible attitude.

“You'll never find a husband if you don't behave any better!” she cried. “You think I'm going to support you and feed you all your life? You'll soon be an old maid, Nori! Oh, I do wish you had been less _plain_ , people wouldn't have minded what a _horrible_ person you are, if only you'd been _prettier_!”

“We can't all be as lucky as you, mother.”

“No, of course not,” Dev sighed, mistaking the insult for a compliment. “Still, there's some good in that face of yours and in your flat chest. Everyone knows master Dwalin prefers to lie with other males, and you do look so boyish, it could work. All you'd have to do is stay silent for a while, smile a lot, and he'd put his pearl in your hair in no time. I'll have to talk to master Balin. Women of our clan have always been _so_ fertile. If I can convince him that you'll bear them many heirs they'll take you in, ugly and insufferable as you are!”

Nori stopped listening after that. She didn't have to. She knew that speech too well, having heard it again and again since she was thirty.

It made her sick to the bone, the idea that she'd never be more than a breeding tool, in the eye of dwarves who should have been her kin. It made her want to run away and never come back. So that night, she told Dori where she had hidden money for him and the baby. She then wrote a letter to Bombur, to say she had encountered unexpected problems, that she didn't know when she'd come back.

She didn't like lying to him, but it would have taken a stronger dwarf than her to admit she didn't even know _if_ she'd come back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori runs away for 8 years, but comes back home in the end and has to find her place again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uuuuuurgh  
> that chapter took foreveeeeeer  
> and I don't like iiiiiiiiit  
> Drama such as this doesn't even fit my headcanon for Nori that well, but I've got to establish things before I can start having fun...D:

She went West, and saw the sea. She went East, and saw the mountains. She went South, and saw the vast plains there. She felt free, more than she had ever been in her life, and she told herself she did not regret having left everything behind.

 

Until one day, as she was making business with the dark skinned men in the South, she heard a laugh that was so much like Bombur's, belonging to a father playing with his son, and her heart ached with how much she missed her family. Loni probably had whiskers growing now. And she still remembered Bombur's smile, his kisses, his kindness and how much he loved to laugh. The thought that after so long they both might have forgotten her turned her blood to ice. She could not afford to lose them. She could not let her mother do that to her. It was time to go home.

 

It was not quite morning when Nori arrived.

It had been more than eight years since she had gone.

Bombur was the sweetest dwarf the world had ever known, but she knew even he would be angry after such a long absence. He would certainly forbid her to come back and if he didn't, his family would. She had probably ruined everything. She had been just as bad as her mother, only in a different way.

She stood in front of the door, too terrified to knock, and it would have made her laugh if she hadn't felt so sick. She could take men down when fighting, she had faced orcs, she had stolen from people who owned more money than the entire village she now stood in, but she _couldn't_ face her husband.

“C'n I help ya?” a small voice asked next to her, making her jump.

The voice belonged to a dwarfling with brown eyes and bright red hair tied in two loose braid. Loni had grown up a lot. She was looking at Nori with a sort of calm curiosity, as if she couldn't decide if finding a stranger on her doorstep was worthy of her interest or not.

“Only, thass me house,” the girl explained. “Thass were I live, an' ya been lookin' a th'door for a long time, and Da says ya gotta help people, ya know?”

“I don't need help, child. Just courage. That's where you live, then? With your father?”

The dwarfling nodded proudly.

“Got th'best Da in th'world, me.”

“And... your mother?”

“She's why I'm out, see,” Loni said in a confidential tone. “Me Ma, she gone on a trip, on adventures. And unca Bo, he say bad things 'bout her, but me Da, he say she'll come home some morning, when the sun's juss come out. An' I wanna be th'first one to see her, so I'm out to wait.”

“That's... kind of you.”

“Aye, 'tis. But th'sun's all out now. Did ya wanna see Da? He still sleepin' now, but ya can come wait 'nside.”

Nori couldn't help a grimace. Oh, that girl trusted far too easily, just like her father. She'd have to tell Bombur to be careful, to tell Loni she shouldn't be like that with strangers. If he let her talk at all, of course.

“We got some pie left,” the dwarfling told her, looking far too innocent. “It's got apples 'n' pears innit.”

At that Nori's stomach grumbled loudly, reminding her that it had been days since her last meals, and that her husband's pies were the best thing she had ever tasted. With a sigh, she gave in and followed Loni inside.

The house was just as she remembered it, and she wondered why she had ever left.

After her first bite into one of Bombur's perfect pies, she regretted her flight more than ever.

“Thass me Ma's fav,” Loni announced, pushing another piece her way. “Da he say, Ma she love me and the pie first, and him only after.

Nori couldn't help a smile. She had told him that, once, as a joke.

“I miss her a bit, me Ma,” the child continuer. “She been gone long, and it make me and dad sad 'cause we love her tons. Don't ya think, we love her so much, she shoulda been back and never leave again?”

Nori looked up from her breakfast, and realized that her daughter was expecting an answer. Loni was either far too trusting of stranger, or smarter than she had thought at first. In both cases, she deserved an honest answer. It almost made Nori laughed: she had never spoken the truth as much as she did in that house.

“Sometimes, loving people isn't enough. I'm sure your mother had her reasons for leaving, good or bad. But I'm sure she'll always come back, if she can.”

Not the staying sort, but the coming back one.

If they still wanted her after eight years.

She couldn't go that long again. Doing business close to home was dangerous, but she'd find a way. In the West, maybe. She had rather liked the sea.

The sounds of heavy steps coming toward the kitchen broke her train of thoughts, and the voice that soon followed had her freeze on the spot.

“Loni, who are you talking to?” Bombur asked from the corridor. “If you've kidnapped another of your friends, I'll...”

The red haired dwarf arrived at the door and stopped mid-sentence, his mouth open in shock as he stared at Nori. Oblivious to the tension that had immediately risen between the two adults, Loni jumped from her chair and ran to her father.

“Look, Da! I found _Ma_!” she exclaimed, taking his hand. “Juss like ya said, when the sun come up! I _found her_! Ye're happy now, right?”

“That I am, my darling,” Bombur answered, his voice strained, never taking his eyes away from Nori. “You're a very clever girl to have found your mother when _no one else could_. But now, you should get dressed, lass. You'll catch a cold, going around with just your nightgown.”

“I'm not cold!”

“Loni. Please. _Now_.”

The dwarfling grumbled, and threw her mother a pleading look.

“Do as your father say,” Nori ordered. “We grown ups need to talk a little, and it'll be terribly boring, so you might as well go and get dressed, hm?”

She smiled, the sort of smile she usually used on very rich dwarves to convince them that she was telling nothing but the truth, and that they would be fools not to trust someone as nice and honest as her. It worked on Loni, who pouted but obeyed.

It didn't work on Bombur who looked furious. She had never seen him angry before. She couldn't blame him for it this time. As soon as their daughter was gone, Nori took a step toward him.

“Bombur, I'm...”

“Eight years, Nori. Eight. Without a single letter. I didn't know if you were dead or alive. I didn't know if you'd come home. Every night Loni asked me when she'd see you, and I couldn't answer because I didn't know. Everyone told me I should give up on you. And you know what? They were right. I should ask you to get out of our lives before you hurt us again.”

“You should,” Nori admitted. “Will you?”

“If there was only me, I would. And if you do this again, I will. But Loni misses you, and now that she's seen you, she wouldn't understand if I told you that you can't stay. So you can stay. You can stay in _her_ room. She will love that.”

“Bom...”

“This is for _her_ ,” he insisted. “If it were just me, you'd go back to your brothers and your mother, but as long as Loni wants you around, you can stay. Understood?”

Nori nodded.

That was fair, and probably more than she deserved.

Apparently satisfied, Bombur started making breakfast for the family, ignoring his wife entirely. The kitchen fell into a heavy silence, until Loni came back, dressed for the day, and she jumped into her mother's arms.

“I wanna know everything you did when ya were gone!” She claimed, hugging her tightly.

Nori forced her smile, and sat on a chair with the dwarlfing on her lap.

“Everything, hm?” she said with a cheerfulness she didn't feel. “Now that, my princess, is going to take a very long time. But I suppose I could tell you about the things I've seen when I was on the coast, hm?”

Loni's eyes went round in delight, and Nori's smile was a little less fake as she started her story.

She could do this.

 

Fron and Borgen treated her rather coldly for the first few days, but she did not care or mind. She was there for Loni, not for them. And that, apparently, helped her win back what little trust they ever had for her. It did not take long for her mother in law to treat her again as she always had, letting her help in the house and scolding her for spoiling Loni.

Bofur simply avoided her most of the time. It seemed that Bombur had given his family a few rules, one of which was 'don't say anything against Nori if Loni is here', and her brother-in-law had taken that to mean he shouldn't talk to her at all. She didn't mind.

Bifur, strangely, was all at once more welcoming and more judging. He understood more than the others the call of faraway places, as he suffered from it just as much as Nori did, and he often left home for many weeks or many months. Yet he'd never gone as long as Nori had, and whenever he'd been delayed, he had warned his family.

“It's the rule if you leave,” he told her. “You can't leave them in the dark. Bombur is a good lad, who loves you very much, and I think he'd have waited more than that for you, if he had just known that you were coming back.”

“But I wasn't sure I would.”

“Then you should have lied, until you were sure, one way or the other. Oh, don't look at me like that, lass. I know you don't mind lying. You're a seamstress about as much as I'm king of Ered Luin.”

“I _do_ sew!”

“Yes, and _I_ know how to give orders. Look, if Bombur doesn't mind, I don't mind. If you don't bring trouble to the family, I don't mind. But if the people I love start getting hurt because of you, I'll make sure you pay for it and yes, hurting them includes leaving like you've done. It's your last chance, lass.”

She had thanked him for his advice, and resigned herself to never leaving again. That was the safest thing to do after all.

 

It was a couple weeks later that Bifur announced them all that he was leaving. He had already stayed longer than usual, to make sure things were going right with Nori, but he was growing bored. For a split second, Nori envied him. She was not bored (not _yet_ , a part of a brain told her) but as happy as she was with Loni, the longing to go somewhere else never entirely left her. She pushed away that desire though, reminding herself she'd had been gone long enough to last her a couple years.

So her only reaction to Bifur's departure was to come see him a little later, while he was discussing provisions with Bombur, and to give him a letter for her brothers.

"They haven't had any news either," she explained when he looked at her in surprise. "And if I know my mother, she's more than capable of having had three more kids while I was gone, so they'll need... help. And that's what the letter is. But my mother can't hear of it, she'll... spoil it all, as usual. So what you should do... well, I don't know if you're going quite that way, but if you could give it to someone going there, and tell them to give it to Norj who works at the Golden Lion, I'm sure he will give it to Dori in person."

It was the best idea she'd found. It was less than ideal, since Norj as old, and might have died already, but the innkeeper was one of the few people she almost trusted, and she knew he despised Dev almost as much as she did. Nori had never been sure, but she believed the old dwarf was related either to her father or Dori's, and he'd never quite approved of the way Dev was caring for them. He always had fruits and sweets to give her, and she had often ended in the inn as a child, mingling with dwarves of doubtful honesty and enjoying every moment of it.

Norj would carry the message, and even help Ori and Dori himself if he could.

"Isn't that a bit complicated?" Bifur asked.

"It's the only way," she replied firmly.

"No it's not," Bombur protested. "The two of you could go South together, and you could talk to your brother directly to explain whatever it is you have to explain. I thought you worried about the youngest one at least. Ori, isn't it?"

"You want me to leave?"

Bombur shrugged, avoiding her eyes.

"I don't _want_ you to leave, but it's something you have to do, isn't it? And Bifur will be with you, at least."

"But Loni..."

"She stays _here_!" Bombur urgently cut her. "And she'll be fine as long as... as long as you actually come back this time. You'll have new stories for her that way, too."

Nori wondered if it was a test. She decided it was, and that she would pass it. She would go with Bifur, face her mother, and come back.

She could do this.

 

The travel South passed without any problems. Nori was surprised to discover just how well known Bifur was everywhere they went. He had friends all around, or if not friends, at least people he knew and made business with. There also were a few ladies who seemed particularly delighted to have him back, and one at least appeared very cross to notice Nori's presence, until he introduced her as his cousin's wife, going South to visit her family.

He never said more than that, but people must have known the story, because they always gave her a sharp look after, as if she had committed some great crime. Which she _had_ , of course, and more than once, but by the look of things, they would have been less shocked by _that_ than they were by her abandoning her family.

When they finally arrived in what prince Thorin probably called his capital (and oh, she had seen real capitals now, she'd seen glorious cities of men, and that shithole in the mountains just couldn't _compare_ ) Nori found herself unwilling to go see her mother and brothers. She wasn't scared, of course. She just didn't want to go.

Bifur seemed surprised when she started looking for excuse to spend the night in an inn rather than at her mother's, but since she offered to pay for everything, he eventually agreed. Just as he agreed to go to the market the following morning, instead of going to meet Dev and Dori.

"Market's only twice a week," Nori explained. "And as far as I remember, today's the better day for business, it would be stupid to miss it because we went on a social visit, don't you think?"

"You know the place better than I do, lass. I don't usually come that far South. Nobles don't really buy wood toys, it's beneath them."

"Wanna bet I'll have sold all your stock by the end of morning?"

Bifur laughed. "I'm not a fool, lass. I know what happens to people who bet against you, you've tricked Bofur often enough. But have all the fun you want, as long as you keep it... _fair_."

Nori rolled her eyes. Of course she'd keep things fair and honest. It was so much more fun that way.

The morning started slowly enough. Nori's talent helped her sell a bit more than Bifur might have done alone, but it was still far too quiet for her taste. There was barely anyone at all around, and she was starting to get seriously bored. She wasn't the only one. After a while, Bifur stood up, announced that she was on charge for the time being, and went away to have a walk in the market

Nori sighed. What she needed, really needed, was someone really stupid she could convince to buy the whole stock, so that she wouldn't be losing her time any more. Or better yet, she'd love to see someone really clever come, and still make them buy the whole stock. That ought to make her feel very good about herself, and she wouldn't mind so much facing Dev after that.

When a blond noblewoman with two young children stopped to look at some of Bifur's toys, Nori knew she had her chance for a little fun. The kids were about Loni's age (which meant she'd recently had plenty of experience dealing with similar people) and they seemed about as wild and adventurous as her daughter too. Of course their mother didn't seem too impressed by the toys, but that wasn't going to stop Nori.

"Oh, I know what you think," she sighed dejectedly. "Wood. For dwarves. What sort of times are we living in, I ask you? But we have to do with what the Maker was kind enough to give us, of course."

"You're not from Ered Luin!" the noblewoman remarked, clearly surprised. "You have the accent of Erebor!"

"But I don't look like it, right? Well, I married a local, and I've got to fit in as best as I can. My husband is kind enough of course, and I love him dearly, but they don't expect women to dress the way Ereboran do, or to act the same way. Back in Erebor, I'd be noble my mother once told me, but here I'm just a merchant. Well, not that I'm complaining of course. I'm alive after all, and I’m better off than many, you know?"

The other woman nodded, and gave her the look of someone who knew what it was to work when you felt within your very bone that it was beneath you. Nori smiled, as if they shared a same problem.

"The worse of it," she explained, "is that I've got to travel with my husband's cousin at the moment, because my poor dwarf got sick, and can't go and sell these himself now. A true shame, because he knows how to sell, but his cousin? Now I'm not one for badmouthing family, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean. I mean, look what he's put out first. No one's going to buy that, not here. These? They're barely good enough for miners' sons, if even that."

"And what would you sell to... better people, then?"

"Let me show you," Nori offered, turning to get a bag from their pony. That bag contained toys that weren't of a different quality from the ones already on the ground of course, because Bifur was the sort of dwarf who didn't understand you shouldn't have the same merchandise for nobs and regular people, but no one needed to know that.

She took one nice looking wooden sword out of the bag, and showed it to the other dwarf.

"See? This, now this is what I'd want to sell to people in these parts. It's got quality, it's got balance. There's as much craft and talent involved in this little toy as there is on any proper blade. Here, kid, take it for a moment," Nori said, handing the sword to the eldest child as carefully as if it had been made of the sharpest steel. "I'll bet you've got plenty of others better than that at him, but you've got to admit it's still nice, isn't it?"

"It's so great!" the blond dwarfling exclaimed, immediately using it to hit on his little brother's head. "Mama, I want it, I want it! I'll be so good I swear, can I please have it?"

"I want one too!" the other child whined. "Mama, he's hitting me, I want a sword too!"

"Oh, shush you two!" their mother ordered. "And Fee, stop that immediately, you might break it!"

"Oh no, he won't," Nori sighed tragically. "I got a daughter their age, and she's got one of the same and trust me, we _wish_ she'd break it. It's been months, and now she's convinced she'll be a great warrior someday, and she trains all day long instead of helping me and her grandma. A terrible state of affair, but I can't really mind, not when she's smiling like that, you know what I mean?"

"The things we'll do for our children," the other said with a smile. "Fine, I'll get that sword then, and show me what else you have. Fili, stop hitting your brother on the head, or I swear I am telling your uncle, and you won't _like_ that!"

The two dwarfling calmed down a little at that. For about five minutes. Which gave Nori plenty of time to sell their mother a total of four swords (you know how kids lose their toys) two axes (have you seen these carvings? Now that's art, that really is) and about a dozen small animals and figurines (nothing better to make them play quietly, you know).

And she as she left, she promised she'd tell her friends about Nori's little shop, and asked in what inn she was staying so they could come and see her even if it wasn't a market day.

Nori felt she'd done fairly well already, but then Bifur arrived soon after and asked her if she knew that she'd been talking to the lady Dis.

"Her? She can't be the princess! Dis is younger than me, and this one had two kids. She'd never have started that young, it's not done for nobs."

"You started young."

"Yeah, and I don't really count as noble."

"Still, it was her," Bifur insisted. "I've heard people talking, and they knew her."

"That's a pity then. If I had know, I'd have made her pay more than that."

"You already asked twice the price!"

"Yeah, I did, didn't I? Should have asked three times. She had mithril in her hair. Mithril! I'd only seen _pictures_ of it before. Oh, yes, next person I see with mithril, I'll triple the price, trust me on it."

Bifur laughed, but she was dead serious.

Anyone who could afford mithril _deserved_ to pay a high price.

 

 

It took her the rest of the day to find the courage to go see her mother, and she had to beg Bifur to come with her. He refused at first, thinking she was only being polite, but she insisted until he agreed.

She was _not_ afraid.

But she remembered what had happened last time she'd gone alone against Dev and Dori, and she _couldn't_ risk that again, not when it meant she might lose Loni and Bombur for good.

The neighbourhood hadn't changed much since she'd gone. It had gone a little dirtier and poorer maybe, but that was it. The house had definitively taken a turn for the worse, though, and Nori wondered when was the last time anyone had had the walls checked. Everything looked ready to crumble at the first chance, meaning Dori had either died, or been far too busy to take care of anything. She hoped it was the second. She dreaded to think of poor little Ori alone in Dev's hands.

When it was Dori who opened the door to her, she felt so relieved she was almost tempted to hug him. Almost.

Dori, on the other hand, must have worried a lot more than her, because as soon as he was certain that it really was his sister in front of him, he threw his arms around her and held her tight enough to hurt.

“I thought you were dead!” he sobbed. “Eight years, Nori! Eight!”

“I know, I know. I was... busy.”

Dori pushed her away, going from over-affectionate to furious in the blink of an eye.

“Busy? You were _busy_? We talked about this, you said you'd write now, you promised! This is the problem with you, you just can't be trusted for anything! I shouldn't let you come in, I should send you away before you start hurting Ori like you keep hurting me and mother!”

“I doubt I'm hurting her very much by going away. And anyway, you'll be pleased to know I've brought _money_. Still sending me away?”

He glared at her, hatred clear in his eyes, but he said nothing. Forcing a deep breath, Dori then turned to Bifur, giving him the most polite of his fake smiles.

“And who might you be, sir? An... _associate_ , or...”

“An associate,” Nori quickly answered. “An _honest_ associate. We sell toys. We sold some to the princess herself, just this morning.”

“You're going honest then?” Dori snapped, before frowning. “Going honest with someone who knows you're not _always_ honest?”

“We have an agreement,” Bifur explained with a charming smile. “And you must be Dori. I have heard a lot about you. Nori says you are a very dedicated brother.”

“Did she, now?”

“She might not have used these exact words,” the toy-maker admitted with a sly smile. “But that's what I understood of her stories.”

“Well. At least this time, she's hanging around someone who knows how to pretend they can be nice, that's a change. Come in, both of you. Mother isn't home, but she'll be soon, and I still have to prepare dinner.”

If the house had looked broken-down outside, inside it was a ruin. There were barely any furniture left, and what was still there was in a state of disrepair. Nori turned to Dori, hoping for an explanation, but he avoided her eyes.

“Ori is with mother,” he said. “She likes to take him with her when she goes out. He's such a quiet and nice child, and she loves him so much.”

Which meant Dev used him to get some pity from the few relatives they still had. She'd done it with Nori too, once or twice, except Nori had never been a nice and quiet child, and it hadn't work so well. The idea of Ori being used like that too was more than she could bear (and she remembered only too well the unkind words when she didn't behave, and the way Dev would shake her up if she felt she hadn't been promised enough money).

“He's such a bright child,” Dori continued. “Very sweet, very smart. A bit like you, but not quite so difficult to handle, you know?”

“I wasn't so bad,” Nori protested.

“You started getting arrested when you were fifteen.”

“It stopped when I was thirty, though.”

Because she'd gotten better at stealing by then, and at not getting caught. She knew it. Dori knew it. Bifur probably guessed it. But no one said anything, and instead Nori asked what he was cooking.

Dori went pale.

“Are you two... staying? I'm afraid I don't... Nori, I'm not chasing you, but there's not... we don't have enough for...”

“Does Lanr from down the street still sell roasted chicken? I told you, I've brought money.”

Dori barely hesitated before he agreed, and that alone terrified Nori. Her brother was nothing if not stupidly proud. He should never have accepted charity that easily, not from her of all people, and not with a stranger present.

She wondered when was the last time her brother had had a proper meal.

She then decided she probably didn't want to know. Dori had his bad sides, but he was the sort who would always make sure his siblings were fed, even if he wasn't. Nori couldn't go away that long again, she had to make sure both Dori and Ori had _enough_ to live, even with Dev around.

“Was it already like that when you left?” Bifur asked her once Dori had gone to buy a chicken.

“I think it got worse. Or maybe I just didn't see it back then. I'm fairly sure he wasn't as thin before, but I can't swear. I can't believe mother is making him cook. He's got a _job_! And if he's lost it, he could easily get a new one, she shouldn't be forcing him to take care of the house!”

Bifur nodded grimly, and Nori felt ashamed of her mother, of her brother, of that house, of everything.

She was almost glad when the door opened again, and Dev came in, with little Ori by her side. The feeling of relief lasted for about three seconds before she noticed that her mother's dress seemed brand new, but that Ori was half as large as Loni, and significantly smaller, even though they were nearly the same age.

Not good.

Not good at all.

“Who are y... Nori? You're still alive?”

Nori rolled her eyes. Her mother could have least have pretended to be glad to see her alive.

“As you can see, I haven't die quite yet. Neither have you. And look how grown Ori is! Hello you, do you remember me?”

The child gasped when she turned toward him, and quickly hid behind his mother's skirts. Shy. Far more than any dwarfling that age that Nori had seen before.

“Of course he doesn't remember you,” Dev sighed, sounding exasperated. “He barely knows you. Ori, this is your sister. We've told you about her, haven't we? And who is your... friend, Nori?”

“My husband's cousin,” she replied coldly.

“Nori, please, don't start joking, it is most unbecoming of a lady. As if anyone would ever marry you, when you're already so old and looking even more like a man than when you left. My poor girl, the Maker really hasn't been king with you, has he? And all that running around you do certainly hasn't help. Now, tell me who that person really is.”

“Bifur is my associate. We work together. He makes toys.”

“He's a native, isn't he?” Dev asked, not bothering to hide her disgust at the idea. “Oh, Nori, where did I go wrong with you, to have you associate with... with people like this? We are worth so much more than that! And I suppose you'll want me to feed you and your employee now, won't you? Well, I'm afraid I can't, not this time. I've told you before, Nori, it's time you start taking care of yourself. You can't keep coming home like that and expect me to always welcome you! I have Ori to minf now. It's bad enough that Dori refuses to grow up and to start his own life, but I can't have both of you dragging me down, Nori, I just _can't_. I do my best, but you're asking too much.”

Nori gritted her teeth, but forced a smile.

“Of course, mother. I am so sorry for imposing on you. We will be going now. Please, do tell Dori I am sorry we could not stay for dinner. And we will try to come again tomorrow morning, if you do not mind? I have a few gifts for Ori.”

“Yes, yes, do that. It was so nice to see you again, my darling. But do warn us next time, and bring something if you want to stay for dinner. I am not made of gold, you know.”

“Of course. Goodbye, mother. See you tomorrow, Ori! I'll have nice toys for you, you'll see!”

Bifur only bowed slightly before Dev, and dashed outside where Nori quickly followed him. They started going back to their inn then, walking silently side by side for a few minutes. After a while, Bifur appeared to calm down a little and he turned to her.

“Lass, I think I think I understand now.”

“What do you understand?”

“The reason why you left. I'd have left too, with a family like this, and I too wouldn't want them to know about Bombur and Loni if I were you.”

She smiled sadly.

“Thanks. It... means a lot to me.”

“I'm sure it does, lass. I'm sure it does.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori gives Ori some presents, and makes a deal with Dori

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry it took me so long to update this again /sob  
> And it's such a short chapter...  
> But I love this fic a lot, and I really wanted to just post something in it, because I'm not giving up on it?

They went back the following morning, and there was only Dori and Ori home, thankfully. Nori wasn’t sure she could have dealt with her mother again, even with Bifur’s support and understanding.

Dori apologized to them both for the way they had been kicked out, but he still managed to defend Dev.

“She couldn’t know you’d paid for our dinner… you should have told her. You can’t really blame her for assuming, can you? You haven’t exactly been daughter of the century so far.”

“I’ve always brought money when I came back, and I’ve always paid for my stay, but I suppose it would be too much to ask that she remembers that. But that’s fine. Gives me a good excuse not to stay. The only reason I’m even here today is that I have presents for Ori, and money for you.”

“I’m glad you did well this time,” Dori replied coldly. “It would have been a shame if you’d been gone for so long without even earning anything. But I don’t need your pity. We can manage, thank you.”

Nori looked around at the bare living room, and sneered.

“I can see that.”

Dori glared at her, and she felt sure if Bifur hadn’t been there, he would have insulted her… but not in front of a stranger. You didn’t fight in front of a stranger when you were noble, it just wasn’t proper… And propriety was all that Dori had left.

“Look, Do, the money is _mostly_ honest. And if you don’t take it for you, then at least accept it for Ori. A kid his age shouldn’t be that small. Even _I_ never was that small.”

“Are you judging the way I… the way mother raises him?”

“I think you’re doing your best, but that your best isn’t enough to stop mother from having a brand new dress while my baby brother is starving.”

“How dare you… you don’t _know_ what it’s like to care for a child, Nori. You know nothing of… of _anything_!”

Nori pinched her lips and clenched her fists. Dear old Dori. Always finding exactly the right words to hurt the most, even when he wasn’t trying. And he was right of course, she didn’t know what it was like to take care of someone, she had more than proved it with Loni… and to an extent with Bombur because she had failed _him_ too.

“Where is the child?” Bifur asked, making them both jumped. Nori had forgotten he was even there.

“Ori is in his room,” Dori replied hesitantly. “He’s… playing.”

“Then Nori should go give him his presents. If the two of you are going to argue, it would be better that the little one had his toys before.”

“Oh, of course. We gave him your room, No.”

Nori nodded shortly, and quickly got out of the living room. She felt almost sorry for leaving Bifur to deal with her brother, but the older dwarf had been right: Dori and her were going to have an arguments, as they always did, so it was better to make sure Ori got something out of her visit no matter what.

Her old bedroom felt too small and too big all at once. Too small because it _was_ , compared to the one she shared with Loni at home. Too big because the only things in it were an old mattress on the ground, and a tiny dwarfling playing with a crude fabric doll made from something she recognized as one of Dori’s favourite shirts, the one that had once been purple with silver embroidery, but now was a faded grey.

“Hello, kid, can I come in?”

Ori jumped in surprise, and stared at her with a terrified look on his face.

“You can say no,” Nori quickly said. “If you don’t wanna see anyone, just say so and I’ll leave you alone. But before you decide, I’ve got to tell you that I’ve got presents for you.”

The child hesitated a moment between fear and curiosity. In the end, curiosity won the fight. Nori couldn’t blame him for it: she’d have done the same when she was a child.

“Presents?” Ori asked shyly.

“Yup, kid. Toys. But before I give them to you, you’ve got to promise something.”

“Promise? What?”

“It’s got to be a secret. You can’t let mother know you’ve got these toys. You’ve got to hide them. I’ll show you a hiding place in the room, and you have to keep the toys there when you’re not playing with them, or she might take them and sell them. And we don’t want that, do we?”

Ori quickly shook his head. Too quickly. Nori wondered how many things of his had already been sold in the past. Dev didn’t care that her children loved their toys when she needed a new dress, and Dori knew that you couldn’t _eat_ toys… but Nori also knew that the money her brother kept for food tended to end up spent in dresses anyway, so she couldn’t really feel bad about telling Ori to hide his things.

Especially not when she had spent hours making a hiding place on the floor, perfectly disguised as a crevice that she’d always known no one would ever have the money to repair. She showed Ori how to open it, and gifted him the few things she had left there last time she’d been around… a doll, a small pot of honey, a few coins. She added a wooden dragon to it, as well as a couple little figurines, a small purse (full of money, of course) and a dagger.

She didn’t feel too sure about the last one, but at the same time Dev might take another lover some day, it might be a bad one, and Ori would need to have something to defend himself with.

“Thanks!” the child exclaimed, and Nori didn’t know what made him happier, the presents or the hiding place. “Nice sister!”

“And you’re a nice little brother. I’m glad I’ve finally properly met you. I’ll try to come back more often now, if I can.”

“Yes!” Ori shouted, jumping to hug her. “You come back! _Nice_ sister!”

Nori couldn’t help a smile. She was sure that sooner or later Ori would start hating her, like Dev and Dori and even Bombur did, just like Loni too would one day, but it was nice to enjoy these moments of affections while they lasted.

 

* * *

 

When she came back in the living room, Ori in her arms, Bifur and Dori were talking over a cup of tea like old friends. Bifur stood up when he saw her, and smiled.

“I have negotiated with your brother,” he announced. “He will take your money, and won’t ask questions about its origin, in exchange for which you agree to write regularly, meaning at least once every three months, and to visit _at least_ once a year. You don’t have to stay in the house during these visits, but you have to come to the house once, and try to be polite. These are his conditions. Do you accept them?”

“What?”

“I can’t get you anything better than that,” Bifur sighed. “Your brother would make a great businessman.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Dori assured him. “And really Nori, I feel I’m not asking so much. We’ve got to know you’re alive, somehow! You’re impossible, but we still care for you, after all.”

“Oh. I… agree, then?”

They both nodded at her with a satisfied smile, and Ori kissed her on the cheek. It must have been the right answer then.

 

* * *

 

They stayed in town a couple more days, and sold the rest of Bifur’s stock. Nori kept to her word, and anyone with mithril on them paid three times the normal price. Four times if they complained in any way. Five times if they looked down on Bifur for being a Broadbeam.

Nori was sure she could have asked ten times the usual price, and people would have paid it, just to say that they had bought their children the same toys that the princes had.

“You’re good for business, lass,” Bifur said, counting how much they had earned. “Maybe we really should become associates.”

“Never mix family and business, it’s the first rule. Besides I’d get you in trouble sooner or later.”

“And honest business just isn’t as much fun, hm?”

Nori grinned. “Yeah, there’s that too. But I’ll be glad to help here and there. Making nobs spend all their money on something they neither need nor want is _fun_.”

 

* * *

 

It felt strange, coming back home. After seeing Dev again, Bombur and his family seemed almost welcoming in comparison… or maybe it was because they actually were. They all seemed excited to see her again. Loni was thrilled, of course, but they all seemed pleasantly surprised by her return, and Bombur even smiled at her while Bifur explained how she had managed to sell toys to the princess of Erebor. He looked proud, almost.

Almost like before, when she told him stories he couldn’t quite approve of (she never told him the worst ones, but still...). It hit her then how much she missed being with him, really being together, when she could laugh with him or make him blush, be a terrible tease or kiss him before everyone… She missed him even more than she had during her travels, because he was right there, and yet she still couldn’t have him.

At least there was Loni, she told herself.

Even if Bombur never forgave her, she would still have their daughter, the smartest, most beautiful dwarfling there had ever been. And Nori could never be a good mother, just as she would never be a good wife, because it was in her blood to be bad at these thing… but she would try her best, at least.

She wouldn’t be much of a mother, but Loni would never have to hide toys under the floor to make sure no one sold them to buy a pretty dress.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things change, slowly

After that, Nori started travelling with Bifur regularly, and it was good. They made a good team, the two of them. Bifur made wonders with bits of woods, and Nori was terrific at selling those. She could have convinced a hobbit to buy boots, Bifur liked to joke. She could have gotten gold out of a dragon.

“I’ll just get silver and copper out of dwarves,” she always retorted. “It’s probably more difficult, and a lot nicer… dragon gold stinks.”

“How would you know that?”

“Everyone knows that,” Nori claimed, taking up the accents of some of the exiles. “It is known. Don’t you low birth dwarves know aaaanything?”

Bifur laughed, accusing her of being unkind… but he still _laughed_ , and he never protested much when she set high prices for the exiles. It took a lot to anger him, but these nobs had managed it, with the way they sneered at him as if he were lower than them, just because they had once been great enough to attract the interest of a dragon, when Ered Luin hadn’t know any war since the first age.

Nori liked the Broadbeams she’d met far better than any exiles, and she liked Bifur most of all, right after Loni and Bombur.

Bombur with whom things were slowly improving. He didn’t seem so angry at her anymore, not all the time. Whenever she was home, he made sure to prepare her favourite meals, and he asked her about the things she’d seen and done… Nori was almost sure that Bifur had told his cousin about Dev, about her brothers… and now, Bombur sometimes looked at her as if he pitied her, which might have been worse than when he’d hated her. She didn’t want to be pitied.

There were people in the West and the South who feared her, she had stolen from the richest of men and dwarves, she wasn’t to be _pitied_.

 

Things also improved with Dori too. She didn’t quite manage to write every three months as agreed, but she made sure to come have a chat with him instead, and so that wasn’t a problem. Bifur never minded that she took an afternoon off every time they were in town.

Besides, she just didn’t like writing. I left traces, and traces were _bad_ , she’d learned that long ago.

In the present case, no writing meant nothing that Dev could use against them, no proof that there was a link between her children (Nori only came home when her mother was absent. Sometimes it meant she couldn’t see Ori… but she always brought toys for him, and now she believed Dori when he promised he wouldn’t sell them away unless they really needed money). If Dev had known, she’d have found a way to use it, or she would have made Dori feel bad, or she could have discovered about the money Nori was giving them and _demand_ to have it…

Nori couldn’t risk that.

This money was the only good thing she’d ever done for her brother, and she wouldn’t let Dev mess with that. Not when Ori was still so small (but he smiled more these days), not when Dori was thinner than Nori (but he was wearing the nice tunic she’d bought and embroidered for him).

They still didn’t get along, and he was still trying to find ways to make her stay, still telling her about how handsome lord Dwalin was, and single too, a good match… but she always just laughed at him.

“Well, someone has to worry about these things!” Dori grumbled one day. “And you certainly don’t seem to mind that you’re going to die an old maid…”

“Trust me, Dori. I am many things, but a _maid_ , certainly not.”

It was terribly fun to see her brother blush and sputter, complaining that she shouldn’t talk about such things so carelessly, not when Ori was in his room and might hear her… But he didn’t seem angry, not really.

“Are you… are you really happy, living like this?” he asked her, worry written all over his handsome face. “Travelling everywhere… it’s something good for Men. You’re a dwarf, you’re stone and rocks, not… wind. How could you be happy like this?”

Nori didn’t answer right away. She didn’t even _know_ if she was happy. Not with the constant fear that Dev might find Dori’s money, or that Bombur might decide to kick her out after all. But she wasn’t unhappy either, not when she could joke with Bifur and talk to Dori, not with Loni and Ori who were both always so happy to see her.

“I’m not sure I could live any other way,” she eventually answered, and that was the only thing she was sure of.

Dori looked at her for a moment, frowning… and Nori felt her stomach twist painfully. It wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for, and if he decided that it made her a bad influence on Ori… if he decided she was harming his own reputation… In just a couple months she’d grown used to being around them, and she didn’t want to lose them again. She might run away again if Dori sent her away, and then she’d also lose Bombur and Loni for good, and…

“Well, you do seem happier since you’ve come back,” Dori admitted with a kind smile, pouring some more tea in her cup. “I still wish things could have been different. I wish… I wish I’d been a better brother, and that I’d protected you more than that. I apologize for every time I let mother insult you, for every time I did it with her. It was wrong of me.”

It left Nori breathless. She _knew_ he was sorry. She saw it in the way he made efforts for Ori that he’d never really made for her… and she’d stopped being angry at him, because she knew he’d been too young when she was born, and she couldn’t blame a child for mimicking what he saw the only adult in his life do. She _knew_ he was sorry, but she’d never have expected him to _say_ it.

“Yeah, it wasn’t your best moment,” she retorted, too shocked to think of something better. Then, because she didn’t want to be unkind, she quickly added: “But I’ll forgive you if you take good care of Ori. Don’t let her do to him what she did to me.”

“I won’t,” Dori promised solemnly.

“And don’t let her hurt _you_ either. Not _more_ than she already did. You have to protect both Ori and yourself, or I swear to fucking Mahal that I’ll be furious at you.”

“Language, young lady,” her brother protested… but he was smiling, and so Nori smiled back.

They changed the subject after that, talking of Ori who drew so well, and how he’d soon need to learn how to write and read, only books were so expensive...

 

Of course, things weren’t always perfect. Nori was still herself, and she couldn’t help ruining things. It was what she did.

But she felt she couldn’t be blamed for it, not entirely. It wasn’t her fault if the world was full of people who thought they could cheat her when playing dice, and idiot humans who couldn’t see the difference between the cheap crystals she bought for a few coins and _actual_ diamonds. But somehow, while Bifur didn’t mind when she inflated the prices of her toys, he seemed to think that selling gold plated earrings was a different matter. Nori didn’t really see how it was different. Both required hard work on her side, an extensive use of her persuasiveness, and pretending that something had far more value than it really did.

Bifur accused her of acting stupid on purpose when she said that.

He wasn’t entirely _wrong_ , but Nori _still_ thought that what she did to sell his toys wasn’t much better than some of her other sources of income.

In the end, they came to an agreement that when Nori was travelling with Bifur, she had to accept his vision of morality, because selling toys was his business, and he couldn’t afford a bad reputation. In exchange for which Bifur managed to convince Bombur and the rest of the family that Nori wouldn’t disappear again if she travelled alone from time to time. It was fairly easy, in the end. When Nori _promised_ to Loni that she would come back before the next change of season, they all believed her.

“But you’ll have to take care of yourself,” Bombur even told her, and he seemed so worried it almost gave her hope that things might get better between them some day. “You’ll have to eat and sleep.”

“I do sleep and eat,” she protested, and Bifur snorted.

“Only if someone _reminds_ you to.”

She glared at her cousin, and protested loudly and theatrically, claiming that she was an adult, and perfectly capable of taking care of herself… to which Bifur started reciting a list of occasion during which she’d have died of dehydration if he hadn’t been around her to take care of her, until Nori was forced to put her hand on his mouth to make him shut up. Bombur looked more worried than ever, but Loni burst out laughing.

Before long, Nori and Bifur were laughing too, and after a few minute the rest of the family joined them. Even Bombur smiled slightly, and that certainly was progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leeeeeeeet's hope the next update won't take six months to come? orz


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori adapts to travelling without Bifur, and tries to take care of her family as best as she can.

There were now two Noris.

There was miss Nori, who worked with her husband's cousin sometimes, and travelled with him to sell toys. Miss Nori was a little naughty, she liked a good laugh, and if she didn’t like you, she made it quite clear. But on the whole, miss Nori was well liked wherever she went, because she was nice and honest.

And then, there was Nori the Fox. He travelled alone, but could be convinced to work with others. He was a thief, and a conman, and if you annoyed him too much, he wasn’t above becoming a murderer. And you never knew if he liked you or not, not until the day you woke up in a pool of your own blood, supposing you woke up at all. People didn’t like the Fox, because he was a mean bastard, but he was a good business partner and he never failed, so they still worked with him.

 

Creating the Fox had been a necessity. When she’d been younger, Nori had travelled as a girl without caring if anyone ever figured out who her family was. She’d been young and not very wise, and a part of her had _hoped_ that the trouble she got in would create problems for Dev and Dori. She still wanted Dev to have problems, but sadly that meant Dori and Ori might get hurt too, and she couldn’t risk it. She had to protect her brothers, and she had to protect her husband and her daughter… and that was how the Fox had been born.

The Fox was a loner with a taste for extravagant fashion. He braided his hair and beard in a star-like way, and that was what most people remembered about him. The other thing the might notice what that he was always well dressed, and rather bulky (an effect obtained with carefully sewn cushions to make it look like she didn’t have the body of a too skinny dwarrowdam). Few people noticed the Fox’s face, and even then it didn’t matter because he sometimes wore make-up on his eyes, the way dwarves in the East were said to do.

As for his reputation, it had been easy. People were ready to believe anything if it was said convincingly enough, and Nori was good at being convincing. And while she’d never killed anyone yet, it helped that she knew she wouldn’t hesitate to do it if her families were threatened.

No one got to hurt them.

No one but themselves.

Every time Nori visited home, the stories she heard about Dev were getting worse. Dori never said anything of course,their neighbours could be convinced to talk sometimes, if Nori was charming enough…

She learned about Dev’s latest lovers, and how they never stayed long these days. No one was sure why, but the grocer from up the street was convinced that Dori always got rid of them as soon as he felt Ori was threatened. It made Nori proud of her brother, and sad all at once. She wished Dori hadn’t been forced to admit he was living in a world where he had to protect his brother against his own mother and her choices.

She learned also that her mother had finally heard about her visits, and threatened to kick Dori out of their house if he still had any contact with Nori, and if he didn’t share the money with her. Nori was almost certain that Dev wouldn’t really do it, because Dori was the only one to actually earn money at home, but she knew also that he would be worried about it.

That was why, in spite of the danger, Dori was introduced to the Fox.

 

Nori had sent him a letter, asking him to come to a tavern that was decent enough for Dori to be seen there, but not so proper that the Fox wouldn’t seem too out of place.

It made Nori proud of herself when Dori didn’t recognise her at first. It meant the disguise was a good one.

“I know we’ve always told you that you looked boyish,” Dori mumbled as he sat opposite her, “but this might be taking things too far, don’t you think?”

“It’s for everyone’s protection,” Nori replied quickly (the Fox’s spoke faster than she did, and had a slightly higher voice). “I’m your cousin, by the way. Giving you messages from your sister who’s got better things to do than to check on her family. I’m supposed to give you money too, but I think I’ll keep a share on that. Just ‘cause we’re family doesn’t mean I gotta be _nice_.”

For a few seconds, Dori looked confused, and Nori wondered if he would understand and play along. At last, he rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Well, I suppose I should be glad you’re giving anything at all,” he grumbled, the smallest hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. “I see you’ve grown to become even worse than my sister. And how am I even supposed to call you these days, pray?”

Nori almost smiled back, but sneered instead.

“Most people call me the Fox. Feel free to do the same. Ain’t gonna stay in town long. Got business to make in other places. Tell the kid that his sister says hi. Oh, and here’s what’s left of the money…” She threw a small purse on the table. There were only a few silver and copper coins inside it, and she’d have to come again soon to give more, or to find a trustworthy messenger, but she had to send Dev the message that money wouldn’t be coming from her the way it had before. It was annoying that she had to go to such length to help her brothers, but maybe it was just as well.

The Fox’s reputation was spreading even in the exiles’ capital, and Dev might have trouble finding more lovers if it was known that she had any link with such a criminal.

 _Anything_ to help her brothers.

 

The Fox and Dori kept on meeting every few weeks. The Fox never brought much money, and they never talked for long because Dori made it quite clear how much he despised that show off of a criminal. These short conversations were always enough to let Dori know where he might find more money, along with a few small presents, toys for Ori and pretty beads for Dori’s hair.

Nori wished things could have been different. She missed her conversations with Dori, she missed playing with Ori, but she couldn’t risk letting Dev know she was still taking care of them, and the Fox couldn’t be doing these things.

It was the price to pay, and she payed it gladly.

Anything to help her brothers.

 

It had been nearly half a year since the Fox had first met Dori when the mithril haired dwarf send someone to one of their appointments. The son of a neighbour, a nice kid who sometimes babysitted Ori when both Dev and Dori were busy. A nice kid, but it was strange that Dori would have sent anyone at all…

“It’s ‘cause his Ma’s sick,” the young dwarf explained, staring at the Fox as if he might gut him for just daring to speak. “She’s sick bad, the healer says she might not survive it. She’s got the bloody flux, Dori said to tell you.”

The Fox sniggered. Not everyone died from the flux, but those who did died painfully, and it was such an undignified illness… There was something satisfying about the idea of Dev wasting away because of it… it wouldn’t be pretty, but she _deserved_ an ugly death.

When Nori realised what horrors she was wishing to her own mother, it felt like a punch to the stomach, and for a second she wondered if she was going to be sick. Maybe the Fox wasn’t just a role she played then, if she was capable of such thoughts. She was a monster, and if she could think like that, she wasn’t much better than Dev…

“Here’s Dori’s money,” the Fox grunted, throwing a purse at the young dwarf’s face. “Tell him not to spend it all at once. Don’t know when I’ll be around again. Gonna have better things to do for a while.”

Before the kid could react, Nori ran from the tavern.

She was a monster. Only a monster could have wished for the death of her own mother, wished her pain and sickness… and it didn’t change anything that Dev probably was a monster too. No good dwarf could hate their own mother, no good dwarf could…

What if Loni started hating her that way someday?

The thought hit her hard.

Loni didn’t hate her for now, because she was too young to understand what sort of a dwarf her mother was, but it might happen if Nori stayed near her. It had been selfish of her to come back, and it would only ruin Loni until someday she’d hate Nori, the way Nori hated Dev, and she’d have turned her child into a second herself… All because she’d been too selfish to just _leave_. All because she’d been too selfish to admit that she would ruin this the way she ruined everything, and now someday when she’d lay dying, Loni would think it a good thing, she as she was doing for Dev…

She could not let this happen. She had to leave, before she hurt her daughter. Before she made Loni turn into another herself.

 

It took Nori hours hidden in a small room in an inn to calm down enough to _think_.

That she was a monster made no doubt. She’d always known she wasn’t the most honest dwarf around, stealing and scamming any idiot she encountered, but wanting her own mother dead made her a true monster. That was a fact.

Another fact was that she didn’t want Loni to become one too.

A third fact was that Nori wasn’t, would never be a good mother, and so sooner or later, Loni would hate her if she stayed.

A fourth fact was that she couldn’t simply disappear, or Loni would hope for her return, and that would be almost as bad as staying.

With this in mind, it didn’t take very long for Nori to make a decision. She would leave, yes, but she would warn Bombur, and try to figure out with him a story to tell Loni. He could tell her that Nori had died, maybe… killed by orcs. It happened when you travelled. Nori had always been lucky but it _happened_. It would make for a good story, and Loni wouldn’t question it.

It took all of Nori’s courage to pack her things and head back home, but she did it.

It was the right thing to do, and for Loni’s sake, she _would_ do the right thing.

 

“How could it ever be the right thing to abandon her again?” Bombur gasped when Nori told him her plan. “How can you even think of doing this to her, to _us_?”

Nori bit her lip and looked away.

She’d been home for barely a couple hours. Loni had been so happy to see her again that for a moment, Nori had indeed wondered how she could decide to lose her daughter… but she’d quickly pushed that thought away. It had been a selfish thought, and she couldn’t be selfish anymore. She was not panicking as she’d first been upon learning of her mother’s sickness, but the self-disgust had lingered until she had convinced herself that she was somehow ever worse than Dev herself. So as soon as evening had come, and Loni had been put to bed, Nori had asked to talk to Bombur alone, and explained her plan to him.

He had been less than thrilled about it, and Nori had been _tempted…_ but it would have been _selfish_.

“I’ll ruin her,” she explained, ignoring Bombur’s concerned frown. “I ruin everything. I’ll never be a decent mother, I’m never there… and if I were there I’d be even worse. You know it, everyone knows it. I’ll be as bad as my mother, I’ll…”

“You’re not like your mother!” Bombur cut her, before throwing her a worried look. “You’re not. Bifur told me… you’re _not_ like her.”

“You don’t know…”

“Would you let Loni starve? Would you?”

“Never!” Nori hissed, trying to push away the image of Ori, so small and _skinny_ when she’d seen him for the first time… “I would never, but there’s more than one way to hurt a child, and…”

“Would you tell her that no one would ever want to marry her?” Bombur interrupted, taking a few steps toward his wife, but not touching her. Nori was strangely grateful for that. “Would you throw her away after years of not seeing her, without asking her why she’s in your house? Would you criticize her friends, and then insult her in front of them?”

Nori could barely breathe, let alone talk, but she managed to shake her head. She wouldn’t, would _never_. She’d done things of the sort as a child sometimes, to Dori, but he’d been older and stronger so he could handle it, couldn’t he? But she would never have done this to someone smaller than her, someone weaker…

“It’s _different_ ,” she managed to gasp. “I wouldn’t hurt her like that, but just being around… I’ve hurt her before, I’ve hurt you, I’ve lost you, I can’t… I can’t risk her _hating_ me, Bom,” Nori whined. “I’d rather have her think I’m dead than letting her hate me. That why I have to leave...”

“She won’t hate you if you stay,” Bombur promised, crossing the remaining distance between them to pull her in his arms. “She didn’t hate you when you left, and she adores you now that you’re here… you’re not like most mothers, but you love her and she knows that. You love her and you do your best to be good to her. She knows that.”

“I’ll mess up,” Nori protested weakly, huddling as close to Bombur as she could. “I’ll mess up and she’ll hate me.”

“You’ll mess up, and she’ll get _angry_ at you,” Bombur corrected softly. “It’s part of being a parent. I’ve messed and made her angry. My parents messed up and made me angry. You should have seen the arguments between Bofur and my father when he was younger… every other day he threatened to go live in the Shire. One time he even packed up and started leaving, and when no one stopped him, he shouted at my father for being irresponsible and allowing him to just run away like that.”

Nori chuckled. She could just imagine it, Bofur being dramatic like that… it was even easier to imagine because she’d done it too, but she hadn’t asked to be stopped, and no one would have tried to anyway. She put her arms around Bombur’s waist and held him tight.

“If Loni tried to run away, what would you do?” he asked.

“Stop her! And… ask why she’d even want to leave, I suppose.”

“That’s what our father did too. What would your mother have done, you think?”

“She let me go.”

Bombur pulled her closer, until she almost couldn’t breathe, but she liked it. It had been so long since he’d taken her in his arms, and she’d missed it. After a few seconds, Bombur pulled back and looked at her in the eyes.

“You are not a bad mother. You are not perfect, but no one is. You are doing your best, and that’s all anyone can ask you to do. As long as you do your best, you will be a good mother. If I ever think that you’re harming Loni I will tell you, just as I hope you’d tell me if I harmed her. Which is why I’m telling you this now: if you leave for good, with the intent of never coming back then you will hurt her terribly and for her entire life. Do you understand?”

Nori nodded. She couldn’t imagine how staying wouldn’t hurt Loni more than going, but she was selfish and she wanted to stay. She loved being with her daughter and seeing her smile and laugh, she loved chatting with Bifur and arguing with Bofur, she loved being with Bombur no matter how strained their relationship had become, and she was too selfish to want to give it up.

Beside, if Bombur said it was fine… he would know better than her, wouldn’t he? He knew what a real family was like. He knew what parents were supposed to be like. If he said it would be fine…

If she couldn’t trust him, then who could she trust?

“Are you going to stay then?” Bombur asked. “Or rather, are you going to come back next time you leave?”

She nodded again, and startled when Bombur kissed her temple and pulled her close again.

Things would be fine, Nori decided, hugging him back.

They would be _fine_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fear I've gone a bit too dramatic on this chapter, sorry... orz


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori tries to adapt to life  
> for a change?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey look at that, only a month since the last update  
> I am getting better at this writing thing  
> I am also unemployed starting tomorrow, so maybe I'll manage to write even more yay  
> or not  
> we'll see I guess?

Nori didn’t leave home again for a long time. She found people to send money to Dori, but she dared not go anywhere near her mother again. After a month Bombur seemed almost worried that she was staying that long, and he tried to tell her that he trusted her to come back, that she didn’t have to feel forced to stay to be good to Loni…Nori had feared he’d think she was ridiculous, but she still explained it as well as she could, saying that if she left she’d go straight to see her brothers, and that she’d get news of her mothers, and she would get upset again and wasn’t sure she’d manage to come home this time.

Bombur  _ didn’t  _ think she was ridiculous. Instead, he made her favourite pie that night. That alone was nice enough, but when she started talking about going to bed, he stopped her before she could go to Loni’s room.

“Sleep with me?” he suggested, his cheeks almost as red as his hair. “Loni’s getting big, there’s no way it can be comfortable for the two of you…”

Nori stared at him. She always had an answer to everything, she always knew what to say, it was how she made a living, but suddenly there were no words. It had been  _ years _ …  and even with things improving the way they had, even if she could be their daughter’s mother, Bombur had given no signs before that he wanted her to also be his wife once more.

“There is no obligation,” he quickly added. “It’s just for sleeping, doesn’t ever have to be more if you don’t want to… but this is your home too, and I… I can’t have you forced to live like a stranger here anymore. If… if you don’t want us to share a bed, I’ll see to buy you one at least, or…”

“It’s fine like that,” Nori cut him. “You don’t have to… you don’t have to pretend for my sake, and…”

“Pretend?”

She shrugged, and looked away. “ _ Pretend _ . I know I’ve broken things, you don’t have to… act as if I haven’t. Just because of what you’ve learned about my mother… I don’t want your pity. And I suppose it’s only fair… I should have told you long ago because it’s not fair of me to keep you chained like this, but… if you find someone you fall in love with, you can…”

“I love you!” Bombur exclaimed, looking horrified. “I would never… Why would you think… I love you! You’ve not made it easy, and I’ve been furious at you, but… I wouldn’t have kept you in our house if I hadn’t loved you, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have forgiven you if I didn’t love you!”

Nori stared at him for a few seconds, trying to figure out why he was lying, what he could have to gain from this… and then her own suspicions made her sick. This was Bombur. Bombur never lied, never pretended. He was honest, wonderfully and painfully honest, and if she started suspecting him of tricking her, she’d lost all her capacity to trust others. Bombur didn’t lie. Bombur didn’t pretend.

Bombur loved her. Even after all she had done, even knowing what sort of a person she was, Bombur loved her.

Nori fell into his arms, and held him tight.

She was a mess of a dwarf, a monster who hoped her own mother wouldn’t survive to her illness, a creature who stole and lied for a living, an abomination who couldn’t stand to live under the stone for too long, but Bombur loved her, and maybe she wasn’t so bad then, since someone this good could love her.

  
  


Their first night back in the same bad was rather awkward. They each kept carefully to their own side of the mattress, as if they were both afraid of doing something wrong. Nori certainly was afraid. But then, Bombur noticed a scar where her neck met her shoulder. He asked about it, and Nori told him the rather strange tale on accident involving a badger, a few men of Gondor, and an emerald that she had purchased almost legally. She didn’t tell him the story the way she would have told it to Loni. She was more truthful about it, though she still kept a few details out of it.

The tale called for another one because Bombur became curious after she mentioned another incident. Nori was in the middle of her fourth story when Loni came to join them, looking sleepy but unhappy.

“ Wanna sleep with Ma,” she grumbled, making some space for herself between them before cuddling against her mother. “ _ My _ Ma,” she sighed, before falling back to sleep.

Nori smiled and kissed her daughter’s forehead, before glancing at Bombur who was smiling too. She suddenly felt silly for having been afraid at all. This, their bed, was the safest place in the world. So Nori grabbed Bombur’s hand to pull him close, and once the three of them were huddled together, she fell asleep, feeling safe and loved.

  
  


It soon became a habit. Loni was put to sleep in her own bed, but always found her way to theirs during the night. Nori wasn’t always awake when it happened, but there wasn’t a morning when she didn’t wake up with her daughter curled up against her, and Bombur smiling lovingly at them. It was nice, and it was probably more than Nori deserved, but she was grateful for it.

She never thanked Mahal for it though, just it case it had been a mistake, and talking about it might make the Maker realise he’d not given her the life she did deserve.

She missed travelling, of course, but not as much as she had expected. Figuring out how to make things work again with Bombur was just as fascinating as any travel, and a lot more gratifying than earning from some greedy merchants money that they probably didn’t really deserve in the first place. It had been a long while since she’d flirted with anyone,  _ sincerely  _ flirted, but she was glad to see she could still make Bombur blush red with just a grin and a look. And he could make her melt with nothing more than a kind smile or a good pie, which seemed to amuse the whole family. Even Bofur occasionally teased her, when he was in a good mood.

Nori felt happy. It terrified her sometimes, because happiness wasn’t for the likes of her, but she couldn’t really care because she was happy. 

Even when after a few weeks news came that her mother had survived her illness, Nori was too happy to really care.

Even when after a few months she realized she was with child again, Nori  _ barely  _ panicked. It was hard to find the time to panic, between Bombur covering her with kisses, Loni demanding that her new sibling be a girl because boys were no fun, Fron chatting about needing to sew new baby clothes because they’d given away all of Loni’s, Borgen who wanted to organise a great party, Bofur who made dirty jokes… she didn’t have time to panic, and beside, she felt too happy for it.

“Are you sure you want this?” Bombur asked her one night, one hand on her belly even though it was still flat. “We haven’t been careful but… there’s way to not get with child again after this one, if you’d rather…”

“I don’t mind having children with you,” she replied. “With anyone else, I think the idea would make me sick, but with you it’s fine. I’m happy having this one, and if more happen… I think I’ll be happy too. You make me feel like I could be a decent mother.”

“Because you are one,” Bombur replied, kissing her cheek.

  
  


When Bifur came back from his latest trip two weeks later, he congratulated his cousins on the happy news, but much more coldly than Nori would have expected. Bifur loved children in general, and Loni in particular. Nori would have expected him to be happier than that to know he’d soon have a new little cousin to play with and test his toys, but Bifur barely managed to smile when she told him.

“I’ve seen Dori,” he explained. As if on cue, Fron remembered that Loni had to tidy her room a bit, and dragged the child away. Nori was grateful for it. The less her daughter knew about her other grandmother the better, and Bifur wouldn’t have been so grim if Dev hadn’t done something bad again.

“What happened this time?”

“She got married,” Bifur announced. “To the healer who cared for her.”

“And?” Nori insisted, because that alone wasn’t necessarily bad news.

“And she kicked Dori out.”

Nori gasped, and for a second everything felt cold… until she realised that this was actually good. Dori would never have left on his own, but Ori and him would be better off on their own. Dori knew how to take care of a house, he was hard working, and with Nori’s money, he would easily make a nice new life for himself and Ori. It was great news. Her brothers were safe at last, they were…

“She kept Ori, though,” Bifur added grimly.

And that felt like a blow.

Dori could survive on his own, and he could have survived being alone with Dev, but Ori…

Ori probably could have survived too, but the mere idea of her baby brother being once more reduced to  _ survival  _ had Nori’s blood  _ boiling _ .

“She’s not keep him,” she snarled. “Dori must take him away. She can keep Ori, she can’t! She’ll destroy him, she’ll turn him into…”

Into me, she didn’t finish, but Bombur put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.

“She can’t have him,” Nori repeated. “She won’t have him.”

“Dori tried to take him away. She wouldn’t allow it.”

Nori shrugged as if that were important.

It wasn’t.

Dori was good and kind and honest. Perfect for raising a child. Perfect for raising Ori. But he didn’t have the sort of nastiness and lack of conscience it took to deal with people like Dev.

Nori had it.

And Mahal be warned, she was going to save her brother, even if she had to kill their mother for it.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori saves her little brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: violence, maybe torture? (it might count as such, not sure? warning in case)

Dev came back from the market, Ori behind her to carry her baskets, and the Fox was waiting for them.

Everything had been carefully planned. For days, Nori had observed the habits of the house. She knew when Dev’s new husband was home, and when he wasn’t. She knew knew when Ori was with their mother, and when he was sent away on errands. She knew when the neighbours were around. She knew when was the perfect moment to rescue her brother. That moment was now.

All she had to do was unleash the Fox.

It was Ori who first noticed that they were not alone at home. He’d just come in carrying a basket almost as large as he was, and he froze when his eyes met the Fox. He opened his mouth to warn his mother, but stopped at the last moment, looking harder and eventually smiling. Nori signed to him to not get involved, while feeling a wave of pride. Of course Ori had recognised her, he was so bright… 

Dev scolded her youngest son for being in her way, calling him lazy for one short second of standing unmoving. Nori gritted her teeth, and allowed the Fox to take over. He was smiling by the time Dev finally noticed him. Smiling and playing with a small knife.

Dev shrieked.

“Who are you?” she asked, putting herself between Ori and the Fox. “What are you doing here?”

Nori hesitated, because Dev was protecting her son, and maybe she wasn’t so bad after all, maybe she could be a decent mother… But the Fox pushed her doubts away. One moment of decency didn’t erase years of abuse toward three children.

“I’m here for the child,” the Fox explained coldly, staring straight into Dev’s eyes. “I’m taking him away.”

“And who are you to dare pretend to take my favourite son from me?”

The Fox smirked. Dev shivered and took a step back, not seeming to notice when she pushed Ori.

“I am the Fox. I am… a bit of a family friend, I think we could say.”

“You’re that thief who gave Dori money,” Dev gasped. “You’re the reason I had to kick him out! I couldn’t allow such a terrible influence near my poor little Ori! Who knows what you’ve forced Dori to do for that money!”

Once more Nori hesitated. Had she really been the cause of Dori’s problems? If she hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t tried to be clever… but no. Dev had been threatening to make her eldest child leave for years. Dori said she’d finally done it because he’d refuse to give her money he was keeping for Ori’s future apprenticeship, and Nori had to trust him to tell the truth. The other option was trusting Dev’s word, and she wasn’t about to do that again.

“I gave Dori money on behalf of his sister. And now I’m going to take away that kid, still on behalf of his sister.”

“So you’re fucking Nori rather than Dori, is that it?” Dev spat. “I should have known she’d end up in bad company. She’s too ugly to ever marry someone decent. I, however, am married to an important dwarf, and if you try to steal my child…”

“I’m not stealing anyone. I’m taking Ori with me. Ori, do you want to go live with Dori?”

The child nodded shyly, until his mother glared at him. Dev looked ready to strike him. That was new. She’d never been too physically violent before… but maybe she’d just never had the chance. There had been more of a family around when Dori was a child, and Nori answered violence with violence, but Ori…

No child should ever have looked that afraid of their own parent.

“Ori, I’ve put a big back in your room,” the Fox said coldly. “Go pack everything you want to take to your new home, and wait for me to come pick you up. Don’t come back here, I will go to you. Understood?”

The child didn’t move, looking at Dev with wide, terrified eyes.

“ Don’t move from here,” she ordered. “If you move, I will be very cross with you,  _ darling _ .”

“Go to the room,” the Fox said, as softly as he could while still remaining the Fox. “Take everything you want. You are going to live with Dori. You will be safe. No one will ever harm you again. You know Dori would not harm you. You will be safe, and she will never lay a finger on you again, she will never even look at you again. I promise that, kid.”

Ori glanced at the Fox, then at Dev, looking like he might break into tears. It was a terrible choice to ask of a child, and for a moment Nori feared he might choose his mother in spite of everything she’d ever done… but instead Ori ran out of the room before Dev could manage to stop him.

“Wait for you in my room!” the little boy shouted, and the Fox smirked.

Dev had just lost, even if she didn’t know it yet.

Now that Ori wasn’t there to see, the Fox had nothing to fear.

“If you take him away, I’ll go to the king and say that you stole him!” Dev snarled.

“Which is why you’re going to sign this document saying that you renounce all your rights over him in favour of Dori. Look at that, we’re doing it all proper and honest, aren’t we? The contract was made with a proper lawyer, it’s legal and all.”

To illustrate that point, the Fox took from his pocket the contract that had been rolled neatly. It really was a real, honest contract. One of Dori’s friends had written it. 

“I will still go to the king and tell him that you forced me to agree!” Dev claimed, glaring at the parchment.

“No you won’t,” the Fox replied, “because if you ever again do anything that could be harmful to your kids in any way, I will break every single bone in your body. Starting now. So if you refuse to sign this, I will break… let’s say, something in one of your hands. Maybe every bone in your right thumb. How about that?”

“ You wouldn’t  _ dare _ ,” Dev retorted, with the assurance of someone who felt they were too important to ever be on the wrong side of pain. “I am the wife of…”

The Fox cut her with a sharp laugh, and took a step toward her. Dev took a step behind. The Fox moved again, and for each step forward he made, Dev made one backward until her back met the wall.

Smiling calmly, the Fox took her right hand in both of his. She allowed it, too stunned to protest.

“You really have nice hands,” the Fox commented. “I’ve met princess Dis once, and she didn’t have hands that soft and pretty. Beautiful hands. Everyone must be envious of you, aren’t they? Answer me. Are people envious of your hands?”

“My husband says he’s never seen nicer hands,” Dev sobbed. “Please, don’t… I’ll sign, I will. Just don’t…”

The Fox smiled, and caressed the back of her hand with his thumbs, soothing little circles.

“Shh… I know you will sign. You’re too smart not to, and you don’t even like the kid. I know you’ll sign, don’t you worry, puppet.”

Dev sobbed again, in relief this time. The Fox smiled widdened into a cruel smirk.

“But I’ve got to make sure you know you’ll know better than to ever get near your kids again,” the Fox said with a kind voice, before pressing Dev’s hand against the wall and smashing her thumb with the iron hammer he’d hidden in his tunic.

  
  


Dori and Ori cried when they were reunited.

Whenever Nori doubted her right to do what she had done, she would always think back to that moment to tell herself there had been no other way.

Dori and Ori cried when they were reunited, and Ori cried again when he discovered his new room, a room that had toys in it (a present from Bifur) and books and paper (a present from Nori and Bombur). Dori cried once more when his little brother gave him the letters he had been writing, hoping to get a chance to send them one day.

They were happy. Nori had never seen them so happy. It had been the right thing to do, and she’d had no choice. If Dev hadn’t felt threatened, if she hadn’t feared for her life, she might have tried to get Ori back. Nori couldn’t allow that to happen, not when her brothers were finally happy.

It had been the right thing to do.

She still could hear her mother’s scream, still could see her tears, and she doubted that would ever go away, but it had been the right thing to do.

Ori hadn’t looked at her once the entire time they’d walked to Dori’s place, hadn’t said a word, and he’d refused to take her hand.

But it had been the right thing to do.

She could deal with Ori hating her if he was happy and safe.

She knew that she’d have to tell Dori what she’d done, and he would hate her too, and would never allow her to come near them. He’d be right, too. She was a monster.

But it had been the right thing to do, because they had a chance to be happy at last.

To see her brothers smile like that, she’d have done it again, she’d have done worse.

It would have been worth it, to see them smile that way.

  
  


“I don’t like it,” Dori told her that night, after Ori had gone to bed and Nori had sat with him near the fire and told him what she’d done. “This is wrong, and you shouldn’t have… was there any other way?”

The question surprised Nori. She’d expected an accusation, something along the line of  ‘ _ there had to be another way _ ’ . She’d expected her brother to be angry, not sad.

“She’s have come back for him,” Nori explained hesitantly. “If she thought she had any chance of winning, she’d have come back for him, to look like a good and loving mother… she’s got to look good and loving if she wants to keep her husband. I’m sorry Dori, I swear I wouldn’t have if I could have avoided it, I swear, but I couldn’t leave Ori alone in her hands, I just couldn’t, no child deserves that!”

“ No one deserves to have to make that choice,” Dori replied softly, pulling her to him, and she didn’t resist. They’d never cuddled before, not really, and it felt awkward and foreign and  _ right _ .

“It’s okay if you never want me to come back, Do.”

Her brother remained silent for a moment, holding her tighter.

“It would be very cruel of me to do that,” he eventually replied. “Cruel and unkind and you don’t deserve that. You’re braver than I’d have been. I don’t think I could have done this, not even for Ori… and I love him more than anything, but I wouldn’t have dared to do what you did for him.”

“He hates me.”

“ He’s scared. When he grows up, he’ll understand. I will make sure he understands. When he feels safe again, I will tell him… I’ll make sure he knows what sort of a person our mother was.  _ We’ll  _ make sure of it?”

Nori pulled back, and looked at her brother in surprise. Dori smiled at her.

“You could live with us,” he explained. “You don’t have to run away anymore, you could have a house, a home… there’s only two rooms but I can share with Ori, or we can share together. You could stay with us, we could be a real family at last, the three of us, and…”

“I can’t, Do.”

It was everything she could have wanted as a child, a loving family, a brother who didn’t feel like an enemy, a home…

But she had Bombur, she had Loni, she had the child growing inside her, and she didn’t know how to tell Dori about all that. She’d kept the secret for so long that she couldn’t think of telling the truth. It would have been too much for a single day. And more, she still didn’t know how Dori would react to it, to her being married to a commoner, a Broadbeam, a nothing of a cook.

“I’m a criminal, remember?” she said. “I didn’t do all of this only to get you and Ori in trouble. If it’s not the watchmen coming after me, it’ll be people I worked with, or against. I brought Ori here so he’d be safe… and he can’t be safe with me around.”

“People might not recognise you if you give up on the three-peaks do, and then…”

“The do is for… patrons and customers, let’s call them. People who could be a real danger know how to recognise someone even if they change their hair.”

Not fully a lie, she thought. She could do it, so others might too. 

She could see the hurt on her brother’s face, she could feel he didn’t fully believe her, but he didn’t insist, and she was grateful for that. She didn’t like lying to him these days.

“I’ll still come and visit as often as I can,” she promised. “If you want me to… if Ori wants me to…”

“You’re such a silly girl sometimes,” Dori sighed with a sad smile. “Of course we’ll want you to. You are our sister, and we love you, don’t we?”

“I love you too, Dori,” she replied, surprised by how _true_ it was.

When he pulled her into another hug, Nori allowed it gratefully, holding him as tight as she dared.

She was a terrible dwarf, a monster and a liar.

But she felt too happy to care.

 


End file.
